The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
Wed, Jun 2 2010, 10:56PM
To start a debate - opinion - this year's Proms programme is by far the worst I have seen in decades and certainly lacks any proper theme of note. Its programming is staid, quality of orchestras highly limited, and the extortionate pricing for the sole big name (BPO- prime ticktets up from 44 to 54 quid ) leaves a lot to be desired.
Yet there has been very little debate on this point that I am aware of.
Perhaps we can have one here....
Sun, Jun 6 2010, 6:59PM
#2
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
Sounds mouthwatering. The August 11 Prom when The Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard perform works by Ligeti, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and most especially the UK premiere of Langgaard's Music of the Spheres could be worth the price of a season ticket alone.
As for quality of orchestras, how does anyone know if they are good or bad until you hear them on the night, anything else is hearsay, that's my opinion anyway.
Mon, Jul 26 2010, 6:16PM
#3
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
The top price for BPO/Rattle in Berlin is 80Euros; they are on tour here so costs are higher. I believe their dates sold out on the day booking opened. If you want the best you have to pay the going rate; as for the rest they are still pretty good but less expensive. Julia Fischer, Hilary Hahn, Placido Domingo, Bryn Terfel etc etc some of the finest soloists in the world appaering with poor orchestras? I don't think so!
Tue, Aug 3 2010, 9:53PM
#4
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
Dear me, noorjivraj, I hope your comment about poor orchestras does not include the Royal Liv Phil who played magnificently a few days ago - and their main item, the Tchaikovsky Manfred symphony won an award for the orchestra's earlier CD version.
Tue, Aug 3 2010, 10:26PM
#5
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
What I've seen on TV so far I have to agree that the quality of orchestras is very variable. Limited may be a little harsh. The billing didn't always match expectation. E.g. the WNO orchestra had world class playing of Meistersinger (not necessarily what you would expect, but the conductor did not really have the idiom under his skin, and please can Bryn Terfel stop attempting to sing Wagner asap). In contrast, the CBSO in Beethoven piano concerto (no. 4 if remember correctly) was awful - everything screamed 'look at me playing' this chord, or this figuration, instead of giving a performance to match the excellent Paul Lewis. As Abbado once said, if any detail draws attention to itself, then it is already too much. CBSO/Nelsons - please note.
I don't have much expectation for what remains of the season, but I look forward to being proved wrong.
Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:51PM
#6
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
On the issue of prices, yes £54 is still a little - not much - than what the BPO are charging at the RFH and Barbican for their concerts next year.
But the point of the Proms is AFFORDABLE and INNOVATIVE programming.
I had my first taste of top quality orchestras such as VPO, Concertgebouw etc at the Proms for far more modest prices for prime seats at the Proms, and this habit has now extended to seeing top orchestras at the other London venues now that I can afford that.
To raise the prices from £44 to £54 in one go does seem to be a change in management's view of the Proms.....
As to quality of orchestras, well one swallow doesnt make a summer and one Manfred doesnt make a season, and with all respect to Minnesota and other orchestras, they are a league away from Leipzig, VPO, Dresden, Cleveland, Chicago,BPO, Concertgebouw, Boston et al, of whom in the last few years we would have had no less than 3 of them in any given year.
The Proms this year did seem a rather mishmash of "Oh wouldnt it be nice..." and "Flavour of the Month" orchestras ...remember Montreal Symphony, CBSO, Oslo all being touted as the greatest thing since ..... tradition is tradition .... just one bar of Brahms from the Leipzig strings shows up all these flavour of the month orchestras
Mon, Nov 1 2010, 12:40PM
#7
RE: The Exceedingly Poor Proms Programme this year
I'm not a Proms fan, and I haven't attended a live one since I heard Mackerras conduct Handel's Solomon with Heather Harper and Elizabeth Vaughan sometime in the sixties, though I've not been within 500 miles of London for most of that time. Radio Three's incessant hype, the careless and breezy presentation, and the over-repetition puts my teeth on edge and if you asked me to sign a petition for a Proms Sabbatical I would - early and often. But in all conscience I have to say that if, around, say, 1956, I was offered this year's programme I would have been first in the queue for tickets. Foreign orchestras? An enormous range of conductors? Properly rehearsed and prepared concerts? Mahler? Bruckner? Manfred? Rattle? Just what do folk want? The real problem is that so much of Radio Three's disposable budget already goes on the Proms that the rest of the year's broadcasts suffer. How often now between late September and July do we hear a BBC orchestra (let alone any other) in a live, directly transmitted, concert? Or a studio recital? Or a complete, commercially recorded opera? (The recent sad loss of Dame Joan Sutherland would once have been commemorated by Lucia, Semiramide, and Fille du Regiment at least, quite possibly on consecutive nights). Radio Three has become almost entirely a recorded music station with a season of Proms. Proms fans must look forward to economies, cuts, sponsorship, and possibly slow strangulation altogether over the next few years. Cherish your memories of 2010 - in 2015 it will seem like an annus mirabilis, though I hope things won't go back to the worst of the early 1950s. Meanwhile all sorts of media giants will be finding ways of tax avoidance while my licence fee subsidises government encouragement of them. We are, as someone once said, all in this together, but some of us know where the bar is, and they aren't going to let on.
Does it have to have a theme?
Not having a theme may even be better according to Martin Kettle, writing in May's Prospect magazine -
"There is no grand theme to this year’s Proms, no special marking of a composer’s birth or death. Thank heavens for that.
"Look for a unifying theme in the 2010 BBC Proms season, which starts in July, and you will struggle to find one. Some concertgoers see this as a sign it may have lost its way since Roger Wright took over as director from Nick Kenyon. I disagree."
But I'm afraid you'll need to be a subscriber to Prospect to find out why.
Over 140 composers in 76 Proms (and 13 chamber concerts), including Hans Abrahamsen, Luke Bedford, Julian Anderson, George Benjamin, Canteloube, Cornelius Cardew, Dallapiccola, Daniel-Lesur, Tansy Davies, Brett Dean, James Dean (no, not that one), Jonathan Dove, Graham Fitkin, Simon Holt, Jouni Kaipainen, Matalon, Colin Matthews, Mosolov, Betty Olivero, Tarik O’Regan, Schnelzer, Schreker, Bent Sørense, Takemitsu, Huw Watkins, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
And that's only to select some of the less mainstream 'contemporary' composers - some of the other programming is less than 'staid', too. It depends on your personal tastes, of course, but my guess is the majority of the audience will find a fair amount of variety and interest in the programme.
The Proms feature most, if not all, of the BBC's orchestras, the CBSO, Czech Philharmonic, LPO, LSO, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, WDR SO Cologne, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Minnesota Orchestra, the Berlin Phil, and not to forget His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts.
There are obviously other very good orchestras out there. There may well even be better ones. But it's not a bad line-up.
Yes, I agree that's expensive.
But maybe that's down to what the BPO charges to perform, as much as the Proms' organizer's decision to set a high price?
So, to turn the question round - if you'd prefer to have a theme, what would it be, and why? What would you programme?
"Louder! Louder! I can still hear the singers!"
- Richard Strauss to the orchestra, at a rehearsal.